Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

12. Reading through the UK Statistics Authority booklet, I am struck by the number of times that the Government have been rebuked for giving false information in their statements. The Prime Minister is twice rebuked for giving the wrong facts about the debt, saying that it is falling when it has in fact been rising. Could the Cabinet Office get together with the UK Statistics Authority and agree to deal with facts, rather than fiction, in Government statements for the next three months?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The question is about Government procurement, small businesses and the voluntary sector.

[Mr Maude]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman made a very interesting point, but I am finding it hard to relate it to the question under consideration.

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[Mr Maude]

As I have said, we have moved significantly towards our aim of ensuring that 50% of public appointments are of women. I recently hosted events organised in Birmingham and Leeds to encourage people from outside London to express interest and apply for such roles, and I am delighted to say that there was a huge amount of interest. We will continue down that path. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A great many very noisy private conversations are taking place in the Chamber. We should have a bit of order, not least so that we can hear the Chair of the Public Administration Committee, Mr Bernard Jenkin.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

7. What plans he has to improve the effectiveness of his Department in co-ordinating planning and implementation across Government Departments.

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[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T7. At Prime Minister’s questions in November last year, the Prime Minister said that “there are 1,000 more GPs across the country than there were in 2010.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 822.]According to the UK Statistics Authority, however, there were actually 356 fewer. That is just one error. The UKSA recently revealed that, since May 2010, it had had to investigate the Government more than 200 times for the use of dirty statistics. When will this Government stop their fiddling?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have got the gist of the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[Mr Maude]

The hon. Gentleman should be aware that the UK Statistics Authority has on several occasions found the Opposition guilty of using statistics in a misleading way. That is its function: to hold us all accountable.

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[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister cannot get away from it: he is a dodgy Prime Minister surrounded by dodgy donors. He did not just take the money—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It has always to be said: the questions will be heard and the answers will be heard, because this is a democratic Chamber. I do not mind how long it takes, they will be heard.

[Edward Miliband]

He did not just take the money; he appointed the man who was head of HSBC as a Minister. It was in the public domain in September 2010 that HSBC was enabling tax avoidance on an industrial scale. Are we seriously expected to believe that when he made Stephen Green a Minister four months later, he had no idea about these allegations?

[The Prime Minister]

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has brought up the issue of Stephen Green, who was a trade Minister in this Government. This is the same Stephen Green whom Gordon Brown appointed as the head of his business advisory council. This is the same Stephen Green whom Labour welcomed as a trade Minister into the Government. It is the same Stephen Green whom the shadow Business Secretary, who is looking a bit coy today, invited on a trade mission as late as 2013. We know what happens: every week the right hon. Gentleman gets more desperate. He cannot talk about the economy and he cannot talk about unemployment, and so he comes here with fiction after fiction. Let me deal, while I have a moment, with the fiction we had last week. He came here and, if you remember, he talked about something called intermediary tax relief. It turns out—[Interruption.] We have as long as it takes.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I said that the questions must be heard. The responses must be heard.

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, the Labour leader asked me six times about the tax treatment of hedge funds. Now it turns out that the treatment he is complaining about was introduced in the autumn of 1997 by a Labour Government. It further turns out that it was extended in 2007. Who was in power in 2007? It was Labour. Who was the City Minister in 2007? I think we’ll find it was Ed somebody.

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[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Q6. My constituents—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to be heard with courtesy.

[Glyn Davies]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. My constituents in Montgomeryshire are not able to see a GP as quickly as they should. Does the Prime Minister agree that we need to train more GPs to take forward our plans for surgeries to be open seven days a week and in the evenings, and will he press for similar hours of opening to be available to my constituents in Wales?

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I said a moment ago that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) had a right to be heard with courtesy. The hon. Lady has a similar right to be heard with courtesy, and be in no doubt: she will be heard with courtesy.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wanted to know whether the Prime Minister has had any conversations with Lord Green about tax avoidance at HSBC; if not, why not?

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. One sentence. This is a question, not a statement.

[Jason McCartney]

Yes, Mr Speaker; I will finish very shortly. Tomorrow I am meeting local manufacturers at the award-winning Huddersfield university. Can I tell them that the Prime Minister will continue to put Yorkshire at the heart of his long-term economic plan?